by Michael Holland
Time seems to slip by, minutes here, hours there, then suddenly weeks have gone by. As a leader, you have many competing interests for your time during any given day. Current business protocol encourages an endless run at meetings, and at times, it seems you have little control of your destiny. Or can you take control?
Measure It
As you expect your employees to work effectively and efficiently, you should impose the same expectation on yourself. To help get a handle on where the time goes, develop a simple time sheet for a week. Here are some ideas on categories which could be used to delineate your investment of time:
- Others’ meetings that were critical
- Meetings I ran that were impactful/important
- Meetings I ran which were less than impactful
- Others’ meetings that were not critical
- Talking with my employees
- Emailing/IMing/Texting
- On the phone
- Administrative
- Doing work as a working manager
- Thinking time
Take Action
Make a pie chart at the end of the week to help analyze where time was spent. Next, take a look at the data and determine your perspective on the return on the investment of your time for the company and for you as a leader. Develop an action plan based on your assessment of ROI and how you might want to adjust the time.
